Which COVID vaccines are up to date against the new variants?

COVID-19 is here to stay because It is a virus with constant mutations and that is why new waves of coronavirus with different variants are generated.

Health specialists stressed the importance of applying updated vaccines to prevent contagion of the disease, they said during the virtual forum El Financiero Meet Point: New wave of COVID. How to prevent it?

Jorge Baruch, coordinator of the COVID Diagnostic Center of the Faculty of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), explained that the World Health Organization (WHO) recently issued an update recommendation for COVID vaccines.

Currently, the only ones that meet these requirements are Pfizer and Moderna, which are available in Mexico, but only for sale.

Where can I get vaccinated against COVID-19 in Mexico?

In December 2023, the Federal Commission for the Protection of Health Risks (Cofepris) approved the sale of COVID-19 vaccines, so they are available in private pharmacies such as San Pablo, Similares, Farmacias del Ahorro, the Mexican Red Cross and in companies such as Walmart.

According to Rosa María Wong, Head of the Clinical Research Subdivision of the UNAM Faculty of Medicine, it is expected that the Pfizer and Moderna drugs with the latest updates to the new COVID-19 variants will arrive in the country in the second half of the year.

“During the first half of this year, the information circulated variant JN.1 and the new ones are KP.2 and KP.3, so the WHO decided that the updated vaccines should be based on the JN1 variant,” explained Rosa María Wong.

Meanwhile, the specialist added that the public sector does not currently offer updated COVID vaccines because, according to the campaign it has disseminated, those available are vaccines such as the Russian Sputnik and the Cuban Abdala, which have no record of being updated with the WHO.